Maria Cucinotta

Name: Maria Cucinotta

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Grade: Senior

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Cooking, food, diving, animals

Appearance: Maria is around 5 foot 7, and weighs about 52 kilos. This puts her just slightly underweight, something which she has been diligently maintaining ever since she's stopped growing, around half a year ago.

Because of her Italian heritage, she has olive-coloured skin and black hair, which has been cut to the top of her neck. Her face is oval-shaped and her eyes are perfectly symmetrical on either side of her face. Like her hair, her eyes are also black, although she claims they are simply dark brown

On the day of the kidnapping, she was wearing a grey polyester top, underneath a wool sweater, along with a pair of long, black, cargo jeans made from cotton. She also had a green gore-tex jacket in her bag, along with a grey beanie with a red hoop.

Biography: Born July the 3rd, 1998 in a small town near Rome, Italy, the doctors had to perform an emergency Caesarian section. Both she and her mother survived the surgery, but her mother passed away a week after, due to complications.

Her father, an engineer, moved to London, England, when she was roughly three years old as he was offered a job in a lucrative firm. It was in England she was introduced to celebrity cooking, such as Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver. She was also introduced to David Attenborough, leading to her life-long love of both animals and cooking. These people inspired her from a very early age, and she realised that that she wanted to be a celebrity personality, and it was not long after that she started cooking.

She first started cooking when she was around eight, and quickly found that she had a passion for it. She found it relaxing, and the sensation of bringing together wildly different tastes and ingredients into a completely different dish appealed to her, often using one of her father's favourite quotes to sum it up; "the whole, is more than the sum of its parts." It was just a few days after her tenth birthday when she had to be admitted to hospital, following the loss of the tip of her left index finger, due to an accident involving a deboner knife. Her father very nearly banned her from cooking with knives, only relenting when Maria promised to be more careful with them. Unlike most people, the loss of the tip of the finger only made her more convinced to master the art, so that she would never injure herself again.

Her father's firm soon offered him an increased salary and job securities if he was willing to make the move to America. Having no reason to prefer the busy city, he and Maria made yet another move only two years later, and they have stayed there ever since.

It was also around this time that she began to start diving. She and her father consistently traveled across Italy, normally taking a plane to Rome to pay respects to her late mother, before taking another plane to a small town in the north of Sardinia. It was here that she practised first snorkelling, and soon after diving, which she enjoys almost as much as cooking. The fact that everything is so at peace, unaffected by what's going on above appeals to her calmer side, and she quickly gained the required qualifications for a PADI Open Water Under-16 certificate.

Another appeal to her diving is the fact that it allows her to interact with the animals that she cooks in their natural environment, something which she greatly enjoys. As well as fish, she usually takes a few hours each week to bird watch, and has become friends with some of the hunters that she sees, often preparing the animals they kill, be it rabbits, deer or other game. These friendships have given her a rudimentary knowledge of the reports of different guns, as well as numerous bird calls.

Throughout all of this, she still wanted to be a celebrity chef, and she started her first cookery channel on YouTube when she was thirteen. Her channel is much like those of her icons, where she shows people how to make new and intetesting recipes, which she tests and refines off-camera. This type of channel has appealed to many, especially due to her creative suggestions, and her channel currently has around two-and-a-half-thousand followers. As well as this, she often streams her experimental recipes on Twitch, where she has a similar number of followers.

Since she's joined Cochise, she's gained a number of both firm friends, fellow cooking and animal lovers, and enemies, who mostly consist of the 'richer' of the school hierarchy, and fringe elements who don't take their studies seriously. Coming from a relatively middle-class background, (her mother being a jeweller before she died,) she has never slotted in with the richer ones, and bad relationships with similar types whilst in London soured her attitude towards them, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where her attitude caused them to dislike her. Concerning the other group, she views them as wasteful, throwing the "best learning opportunity they'll ever have," out of the window. This attitude largely to do with her father, whose livelihood is built around the education he received, and vestiges of this live on with her.

A stubborn and diligent learner, although not having been gifted with high amounts of innate talent, works to overcome this, and she has been known to pull all-nighters of her own accord simply to understand something, regardless of if it would actually be needed. She speaks both Italian and English fluently, and can scrape a sentence together in French, which was a mandatory subject at her previous English school.

Despite the above however, when a semester is not on, and there's no for her to be revising, she often goes out, enjoying letting her hair down with people of her own age, granting her a reputation for being somewhat of a party girl, a reputation that has been earned through many hangovers.

Maria is a closeted bisexual, and despite dating on-and-off throughout her life, has never come out, all her partners being male. Although over the age of consent, and having 'fooled around' with her previous boyfriend, she's still a virgin, something which she has repeatedly said she wishes to change.

She has a slightly above-average academic record, with mostly B+'s and A's, with the occasional A*'s and B-'s. She and her father have a great relationship, although her lack of a maternal figure when growing up makes it harder for her to identify with other girls, especially those older than her.

Rather expectedly, her favourite subject is her cooking, with the same attitude that has gained her success on the internet bringing her success in her grades, and it is far and beyond her best subject. Interestingly, her least favourite subject is sports. Despite her being an excellent lomg-distance drunner and swimmer, she simply has none of the 'drive,' that has been a staple of her passion in cooking. Her interest in sports is rather limited, if she isn't diving, she's grinding out the miles on a treadmill or track purely for her health.

Advantages: Maria is an excellent cook, being able to rustle up a decent meal out of very little, a sure help in an environment where nutrition may be scarce. Having been using knives for almost ten years, she's learned how to maintain a blade properly, preventing it from dulling, chipping, or otherwise being damaged, allowing her to maintain blades weaponry for greater lengths of time. She also knows a few basic knife tricks, mostly for show. Furthermore, she's an excellent swimmer, with great form and plenty of lung capacity to help her stay underwater. This is mostly due to her having dived for years.

Disadvantages: She's not particularly fast, being mostly built for stamina, and her attitude to those who don't take studying seriously is abysmal, mostly since she considers them to be "wasting the greatest opportunity to learn that they'll ever get". She also finds it hard to properly identify with girls that are her own age and older, but that's not to say she finds them completely alien.

Designated Number: Female student No. 044

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Designated Weapon: Shamshir

Conclusion: Good with a knife and can cook huh? G044 shouldn't go hungry. Not with all the meat that'll be lying around. - Josie Knight

'The above biography is as written by Dannyrulx. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Dannyrulx, Primrosette

Kills: None

Killed By: Alessio Rigano

Collected Weapons:  Shamshir (assigned weapon, to Alessio Rigano)

Allies: Caleb Diamond, Michael Crowe

Enemies: Alessio Rigano

Mid-game Evaluation: Maria woke up in the Staff A Dormitory and prepared to leave, but overheard Noah Whitley and was drawn into a sort of standoff due to miscommunication. She was almost able to diffuse the tension but the arrivals of Sandra Dyer and Blair Moore in short order made her fearful of a chaotic firefight and she escaped. This led her to the cliffs where Clarice Halwood, Conrad Harrod, and Isabel Ramirez had already gathered. She did not trust Isabel, nor Clarice's plan to ring the bell though she was sympathetic to the idea. She left alone.

She went to the library asylum, where she tested the sharpness of her assigned weapon on books. Sanford Bricks found her in here and was immediately standoffish, they remained at a distance and found themselves books, Maria finding The Man In The Iron Mask. Sandy tried to leave but his anti-social behavior infuriated Maria. She tried to call him out for what she perceived as a stupid behavior, and he responded with a threat of violence. Caleb Diamond, who had stumbled into the room, managed to distract Sandy and whisk her away before the danger escalated further.

The duo set up a night's camp at the helipad. Caleb gave Maria cigarettes, in exchange for recovering a length of rope stashed in the helicopter left on the platform. She managed this job despite the helicopter's dangerous location, close to falling off the platform. They stayed apart during the night and when a danger zone in the area was declared the next morning and Caleb went to look for a friend, he offered Maria the chance to follow or not. Maria attempted to, but lost Caleb in the process.

By Day 3 she felt the pressure of her lack of safety and allies. She found herself on the rooftop of the asylum, where she finally vowed to herself that she'd kill to survive. She was surprised by the appearance of Michael Crowe, but she deigned to hear him out. Their conversation was productive and they found common ground, and as Michael ranted about the atrocities of the island killers and his intent to stop them, Maria found herself swayed into believing him. She was the one to offer an alliance, prepared at the moment to lose even her own life for the cause. The two of them started wandering the asylum looking for a fight, and Maria found she was a good fit with her new ally. They were investigating the intensive care wards when they found Alessio Rigano.

He was bloodstained. Maria played the good cop to Michael's bad cop, but Al refused to speak and pulled a gun on them, so Michael charged in. A brief scuffle was inconclusive, but Maria was able to slip in and threaten Al with her sword, forcing him to acquiesce. Michael then tried to shoot the 'gun' and end Al, but it turned out to be fake. The conversation then turned into what they could do with Al, and Maria made the call to keep him alive until announcements the next day confirmed he had killed, she was at the moment still hesitant to actually take a life. They started to inspect Al's supplies, and came up with the idea of restraining Al with straightjackets that were in his bag. But then, Alvaro Vacanti intervened. He leveled a gun at them and ordered them to let Al go. Despite Maria and Michael each trying to explain the situation he refused to believe them. Maria was also forced to relinquish her sword, though Al ended up not taking it as he fled, allowing Maria to reclaim it. She was exhausted from the stress of the encounter and fell into an inconclusive sleep after Alvaro let them be. When she woke she heard from announcements that Caleb had been killed by Kimiko Kao and was furious, she vowed to herself that she'd stay the course and get her revenge. She followed Michael as he spotted something important to deal with.

They found Al again, sleeping atop the bell tower, and were able to trap him with a straightjacket. They rested and considered their next course of action, and agreed that they wanted answers from Al, whatever it took to get them. They woke Al up, Maria finding amusement in how Michael chose to go about it with a waterboarding-esque approach. As Al woke up they were confronted by Audrey Reyes. Audrey wanted to know what was going on, Maria was aggressive in affirming Al deserved it. Audrey remained obstinate but Michael took the next step, he began to suspend Al from the roof, threatening to drop him. Maria was concerned then that Michael was going too far, but was happy it was getting him to talk even a little and she joined in to continue to insist he talk. But Audrey continued to press her angle and implicate Michael, Maria found it to be too much and she dropped her commitment and walked away from the scene.

She quickly regretted the decision but was still freaked out by what had happened, too much to face Michael again. She failed to sleep for a while, wandering until she found the storage closet and stepped in to find a safe place to rest. However she was subsequently distracted by the corpse of Cameron Herrig and announcements, her sense of justice stirring. Al appeared. He asked for Michael, she openly admitted she'd left him. Maria awkwardly tried to question him, Al quickly began to pin his problems onto his being straightjacketed, which Maria was concerned to find weighed on her in particular, she was as concerned to find she was willing to give Al a chance to argue his way out. Al insisted she owed him food, she agreed due to her guilt in being involved, when he insisted she feed him she was embarrassed by the thought and elected to free him.

He scuttled over to her supplies and took food, which she didn't mind, but she suddenly realized she'd led herself into danger when he pawed at her sword. The stress broke her and she began to rant about how Al and all the other killers were monsters who deserved to die. Al counted coldly with the idea that killing was necessary for someone to survive in the end, terrified and disgusted Maria begged Al to just leave but Al decided Maria was a liability to be taken care of. Al missed his initial swing and Maria decked him, Al lost the sword but he came out on top of the subsequent melee, wrestling Maria to the floor. Maria was desperate to live and begged for her life, but Al recovered the sword and began to stab her brutally despite her pleas, going on about how people had to die for someone at all to live. Maria accepted her slow, painful death, and as she died she at least hoped Al would win, that Caleb and herself wouldn't have died in vain. Al ended it with a last blow to the chest.

Post-Game Evaluation: Your death meant nothing anyways, sweetheart. Not with that attitude. - Jim Greynolds 

Memorable Quotes: "I don't even have to swear at you. Your very imminent death will do better than any swear word I can conjure up." -- Her retort to Sandy when he cusses her out.

"All of you equally needed to be judged. Not just you, Al. Alvaro, Brendan, Isabel, Nancy, others that I'm sure that I am forgetting. Even people who will kill in the next days or so. You all deserved to never go home." -- At Alessio, while he has her sword.

"Al.... You have to win... (...) Otherwise, my death will mean nothing if you die too..." -- Her final words to her killer.

Other/Trivia

 * Appropriately, Maria's surname means 'little kitchen' in Italian.
 * Maria shares a name with an Italian actress most famous for playing a Bond girl in The World Is Not Enough.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Maria, in chronological order.

Memories:
 * Once I was ten years old...
 * Wooden head and sandpaper tongue

V6 Pregame:
 * Let's Get Cooking!
 * Morning Dew
 * Chilling

Sadie Hawkins Dance:
 * I Know What My Fortune Is

V6:
 * Rolodex of Hate
 * The Calm Before the Storm
 * Amoung these 'hallowed' walls...
 * Survival Strategy
 * A Chef's Nightmare
 * Unlikely Salt And Pepper
 * 70's Horror Movies 2: New Wave Massacre
 * Hang In There
 * Cooking Up Trouble

Related threads in Meanwhile:
 * If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Maria. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''